How's the Job Recovery?

While MF Global and the situation in Europe significantly reduce the importance of any economic release, I thought I would highlight today's ADP employment figure anyhow.

The chart below outlines the change in goods producing, service providing, and total employment figures going back ten years. Note that over this time there have been no jobs added, while the population has grown roughly 10% (i.e. it looks bad, but it's been even worse).

The good news: service providing jobs (the type that make up the majority of jobs these days) are rebounding

The bad news: goods producing jobs (the type that actually produce stuff) are down almost 25% (yes 25%) since 2001

Source: ADP